


you never needed it to be a clear day

by UnapologeticallyMeatwad



Category: Majo no Takkyuubin | Kiki's Delivery Service
Genre: Burnout - Freeform, Established Relationship, F/M, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Kiki and Tombo are undergrads living together in a small apartment, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:20:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28133817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnapologeticallyMeatwad/pseuds/UnapologeticallyMeatwad
Summary: Kiki first lost her ability to fly when she was thirteen. When she regained her magic, it came with a price: Jiji.She lost it again six months later. Then two years later when she was sixteen. Again at eighteen. It just never ends.Kiki has done this so many times, this burnout cycle. She knows it, she understands it.This time, she never even fell. She just decided to stop.
Relationships: Kiki/Tombo
Comments: 13
Kudos: 29
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	you never needed it to be a clear day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brella/gifts).



> First off, Merry Christmas and all that.
> 
> Secondly, I found your prompt while searching for other requested fandoms. The second I saw your name I knew I had to take this up because I’m actually one of your readers. Been subscribed to your AO3 for a long time now so I feel like I owe you one haha. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

By the end of the day, her bike is creaking loudly. That’s too bad. She always feels so bad rolling the bike home and having to break the bad news to Tombo that his prototype still needs some finessing. It’s a good bike though. He designed it specifically for her. It’s built for speed. She can weave through traffic so safely with this thing, delivering baked goods and other such things without needing to stop.

(Though she misses the old days when she had time to stop and talk to her customers. Now it’s just go go go! She’s on commission after all.)

She sighs, and squeezes the rightmost part of the left handlebar, and a gizmo raises her water bottle to her lips. She gulps it down while slipping in and out of traffic. Without even looking, she hears the  _ ding! _ and that’s one delivery tossed into place. Time to go home. 

She could so easily chain her bike up outside, but there have been problems with theft in the past, even with the chains and locks, so she always carries her bike up. To be considerate, she doesn’t bring it into the elevator. They live together on the fifth floor, so one last workout before finally caving in for the rest of the night. 

She opens the door to her cramped studio apartment. It was a big decision to snag this thing in place of living in the dorms—she and Tombo definitely weren’t ready to live together, but it was just so cost effective. 

It’s worked out at least. She likes having her own place anyways. Being on campus makes her unable to find any kind of peace.

Immediately she picks up the smell of soup. Sniffs again. Carrots, celery, and potatoes. She smiles and sets the bike aside, wiping her boots extensively on the carpet. Within seconds, Jiji runs up to her to sniff her muddy boots curiously, shouting and trilling all the while. He was never like this, back when she could understand him. She wonders if that loss caused him to water down his own personality into basic cat—oh no. 

“Jiji!” she scolds, scratching him by the ears anyways. One of their mugs is on the floor, shattered into pieces. Definitely Jiji’s doing. She tries to tell herself that she shouldn’t have left the mug out like that, and goes to clean it up, grabbing a broom.

The smooth wood is kind to her palm and her fingers, and so familiar. She freezes. She hasn’t held a broom in so long.

And she cries.

~*~

“You know, Kiki,” Tombo says carefully over soup, tongue clicking as he says her name. She loves how he pronounces it, and he loves saying it. “You could always try again, and uh, hey, if you fail, I’m always there to catch you.” 

Kiki stares at her soup, some bread no one wanted at the bakery besides her. She cuts off a piece. “It’s not that.”

He sighs. “I know, I understand.”

~*~

Kiki never even fell. She just stopped one day. 

Infact, her last flight was one of her best. She soared so high, saw horizons that made her weep. Her only regret is she didn’t bring Tombo along with her, but it was kind of impromptu.

She first lost her ability to fly when she was thirteen, but she found her groove again. But it came with a price: Jiji. 

She lost it again six months later. Then two years later when she was sixteen. Again at eighteen. It just never ends. 

Kiki has done this so many times, this cycle. She knows it, she understands it. Her therapist has helped her through it.  _ These things happen. You can’t cure depression. You can’t cure anxiety. They stay with you.  _

It’s true. Her head knows it’s true.

But her heart says her therapist is making a white lie. Because her therapist sees right through Kiki.  _ She’s destined to always be challenged by her magic _ , and she can’t take it anymore. So she gave it up without ceremony. 

Because she can’t stand the idea of losing it. She’d rather just not think about it.

~*~

It’s supposed to be  _ fine _ . Tombo is there to support her. Tombo keeps designing things that make her better at work, make her a more enticing hire in the freelance market. It costs a lot of money to design things for Kiki, a concerning amount, and even though she’s making more money because of him, it hasn’t paid back the net loss.

But it’s okay. Inventing and tinkering makes Tombo happy, so he should be allowed to do it. 

People are supposed to be happy.

“Damn, creaking again?” Tombo kneels down to look at the bike over the weekend. “When did it start?”

She frowns. “Tuesday.”

“Kiki…”

“I know, I just didn’t want you to worry about it over the week,” she grabs her wrist and holds it behind the small of her back. 

He frowns. “You know…” He looks back to the bike and taps it, closing his eyes. “...I kinda want to do a case study on this. It hasn’t been lurching, has it?”

“Nope, totally safe,” she smirks.

“Good. Does it  _ always _ creak or  _ sometimes _ creak?”

“Sometimes,” she says, wishing she could speak more on that. “My days are such a blur, sorry.”

“It’s cool. I’m thinking we pay attention to this, take notes on what is going on with this thing when, that way it’ll be easier to figure out what’s going on.”

Tombo always gets excited at his failures.  _ Let’s keep building! Let’s figure this out! _ That’s him. He’s a fixer-upper.  _ Especially  _ when she loses her magic.

She doesn’t even  _ know _ if she’s lost her magic. She had it when she stopped. She could potentially fly right now, that is, if her magic didn’t catch the hint and peace out. 

Kiki groans. It really sucks when she spirals like this. Tombo is right there, chattering away and she’s just thinking of herself.

“I like the water bottle thing you made a lot,” Kiki says, trying to be positive, wincing when she realizes she interrupted him. “I really think you should consider patents and maybe contacting some exhibits.”

He freezes. “Eh, patents sure, I don’t know about exhibits. I always get so into the  _ scene _ , I forget about the fun of inventing. Does that make sense?”

She grins. “Uh, hello? Former Witch standing right here?”

They laugh.

~*~

Kiki huddles into a bathroom stall, drawing her knees up so no one can see her inside her. She cradles her phone in her hand, at a complete crossroads.

Physics class starts in three minutes. She loves physics. 

She used to hate it, but Tombo, uh, well, Tombo kinda sucks at math. He’s really bad at using the formulas. 

Stuff with his gizmos and gadgets were just not working in high school because of math. It was always a math problem with him. So Kiki stepped up, that’s actually how they started dating. She’d hold his hand while explaining things to him, and it stunned her how the thing she was talking about was stuff she learned in Physics class.

It was junior year and she needed to pick something to start carving out her future. That’s physics. She chose right. She loves it, because the answers always follow an objective formula. Things make sense to her in physics so it’s what she does. In terms of getting a job as a physician at some kind of institute? Hoo boy. 

She blames Tombo for the upcoming headaches that’s going to be. 

So here she is, staring at her phone, running several formulas in her head.

There’s an emergency delivery happening  _ right now _ and Kiki is closest. If she takes it, well, it’s a lot of money. In her head, she’s thinking, it’s at least one month of rent and two months of utilities. 

But on the other hand—this isn’t her first time skipping class for a job. She knows if she misses two more classes she will automatically fail the class. Her grades are up there, but her absences and lack of a clear head are holding her back from being the  _ best _ .

Two minutes now. She needs to decide. She already has the text queued up.  _ I’ll be there _ . Her thumb hovers over the Send button. She bites her lip. It’s like disarming a bomb, this text message.

Kiki’s therapist starts talking in her head.  _ Kiki, you have a very clear pattern of behavior where you allow yourself to burn out, and every low you hit is always worse. But you have the strength to stop the cycle, or at least make it less damaging to you. You need to face it up front, and tell your depression, ‘Actually no. I  _ _ am _ _ showing up because I know I’m worth it, and you can’t stop me. _

Damn you, therapy.

She shuts her phone off, drops it into her bag, and goes to class.

She does math. She raises her hand. She’s correct. Every single time. It feels so good and so rewarding to see her Professor beam at her like that. 

That money though, that rent check she could have just  _ had _ . It would have allowed her to slow down the delivery service for a minute to relax. She ends up sending her therapist a wall of text explaining the situation in its entirety. To Kiki, this cannot wait until next Sunday. This must be resolved  _ now _ . Did she make the right decision?

…

Her therapist texts back.  _ Let’s talk about this on Sunday. It’s too complicated to dig into here. _

Ah!!!!!! Damn you therapy!

~*~

Sometimes Kiki comes home to a mess that is entirely not Jiji’s fault, but Tombo’s. Papers and sketches are everywhere, and he’s got sharpies in his mouth. He spits them out as she comes in. “Check this out,” he says and jumps back, hands in the air. “TA-DA! A FLYING BIKE MODEL!”

Kiki looks it over. She remembers this from their childhood days. The problem is that the flying bike, no matter what the case was, could never sustain flight for too long. It always crashed, or at least drifted into an irreversible glide. Tombo gave up on it because—well—he said it made him feel regressive to be so obsessed with flight in that way.

Now it’s back to haunt them. It makes Kiki cringe.

“I think the issue was the energy,” Tombo explains quickly. “The amount of force coming in, no matter how skilled the biker is, will never be able to sustain flight  _ but _ if I can concoct a way to mechanically  _ quintuple _ the force given,  _ that _ will be enough.”

“That’d be revolutionary,” Kiki says, getting closer. “You sure?”

“Oh yeah,” he grins. 

She bites her lip. “How would you test it?”

He raises a finger, bites it, and holds his hips while humming. “Hmmm… what if… well, you could fly us in case it doesn’t work.”

“Um,” is all Kiki has to say to that.

“Kiki, I know you can still fly,” he says so matter-of-factly. 

That makes her kind of sad. Because she knows he’s right. She can still fly. She still believes in the joy of magic. She just chooses not to engage.

“Counterpoint,” she finds the energy for an evil grin that lights up the fire in her eyes. “If I can fly, why would we need this?”

Tombo’s jaw drops and he pivots into so many dramatic poses. “Aw—well—damn. Hm. HM. That’s true then the real trick is we need to figure out how to give more people magic through SCIENCE. Magic is its own science after all, we just don’t have the means to study it yet and WOW I’m going off, huh?”

“You are, you know what I want to see, honestly? Speaking of like, taking something finite and multiplying its strength. What about dividing? What about a delivery bike that is fully retractable, like, Inspector Gadget style?”

Tombo crosses his arms. “Oh, Kiki. Kiki Kiki Kiki.”

“What?”

“That’s child’s play, my brilliant muse. Ohoho, Doctor Tombo is on the case.”

God, she loves him. She feels bad though. She kind of took advantage of his excitement to steer the conversation away from her existential dread. Her therapist will definitely give Kiki a hard time over  _ that _ .

~*~

Kiki is in the front yard, holding Jiji on a leash. He likes to explore every now and then. 

Today she is slumped on the ground, checking her phone while he sniffs around and occasionally loafs. Then, all of a sudden she feels him headbutt her ankle. She lifts her leg and looks at him and he stares at her, and raises a paw that pats her on the ankle. 

She smiles and gets up, grabbing Jiji by his behind. He shouts with glee as she lifts him. Pats on the ankle are code for cradle time. Kiki rocks Jiji to and fro, humming softly in his ears which twitch in excitement. She takes a second and freezes when she notices how intently he stares at her. 

He blinks slowly and boops her on the nose. Yawns and stares at her some more. There’s something in his eyes.

He… he doesn’t want to be cradled because he likes it. He wants to be cradled because he knows it helps Kiki feel calm. Somehow, Jiji still understands her anxieties. He’s still there, he can still talk to her, it’s just more strained now. 

Her fingers twitch like they’re playing piano. 

Kiki never lost Jiji. The magic… is still there. 

That’s scary, this idea. She clutches Jiji even closer, propping her chin up on his little head. His tail swings with the rhythm of her humming. 

Kiki can fly. She’s flying right now, even though she’s standing on the ground. 

Jiji purrs.

~*~

Kiki waits at the top of a hill, a beautiful grassy hill, listening to Tombo wheeze all the while. Usually she’d help him, but he invented the flying bike anyways. “Couldn’t get it out of my head,” he blushed when he showed her.

The plan is to roll the bike down the hill, get momentum, and launch off the ramp and fly. What could  _ possibly _ go wrong? 

Kiki not wanting to go into the air, sits this one out. Which kinda makes Tombo sad, but she’s a little peeved honestly. 

So Tombo gets on the bike, his cute little tush bobs into the air, and he blasts down the hill, off the ramp—and wow those wings look beautiful. The light shines right through them and for a moment, Tombo looks like an angel as he and his bike descend into the heavens.

Then Tombo falls. Fallen Angel. Sans the bike. 

He hits the ground and Kiki runs to him screaming. He seems okay, just a little dirty and a little surprised. “Are you okay?!” she screams, grabbing him by both cheeks. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“None,” he answers dryly, and gets up, pointing at the sky. “Look! It’s still going!” 

Kiki raises an eyebrow and then looks. Without any extra weight on the bike, it can sustain its own flight now, and drifts away. 

“Wait, it’s still going, NO!” Tombo screams, the bike getting smaller and smaller. He increasingly gets more and more dramatic, like a thespian in a particularly juicy role.

“And it might never even land! All my work, oh no—” he chokes back what is almost certainly a fake sob. “—oh hey, look, a broom. Someone was, um, sweeping out here I guess. Kiki, it’s up to—”

Kiki grabs the broom. “Yeah, yeah.”

She shakes her head as she slips the broom between her legs and leans into it, gripping it hard. She feels it, it’s building below her, this weightlessness. All she needs to do is kick and she’s into the air. 

She stays still, if she does this—she perpetuates her cycle. She’ll crash again one day. She looks to Tombo, who smiles so proudly at her. 

Kiki takes in a deep breath. It’s okay. Crashing is normal. She can’t run from it, otherwise it’ll just manifest elsewhere. She needs to face it.

_ I’m flying today _ , she thinks.  _ I’m going to fly for as long as I can this time. I’m not giving up. _

Kiki looks to Tombo seriously.

And winks.

And kicks and she doesn’t come back down until she’s ready to.


End file.
